One of my managers at work was kind enough to give me a 5 gallon glass carboy I could use for the brewing, which was perfect timing for having things finish up around the holidays. Since I've finally got my cider making process down so I'm not making poison, I figured I would make a big batch in the large fermenter and then do several flavors in smaller secondary fermenters. I only ever want to try and make a variety of ciders or beer, so having the new 5 gallon glass will definitely speed the process up for me.

I started with 4.5 or so gallons of apple juice bought from the closest grocery store. In this case the juice used was a gallon of Mott's and about 3.5 gallons of Indian Summer Cider. Using a special selection of apples can really change the finished product but since a lot of the flavors in this would be arriving during secondary fermentation I just wanted a good base.

I let the juice ferment at 63-65 °F using US-04 yeast, which I've found to leave enough unfermented sugars where the body doesn't end up too thin. Primary didn't take much longer than a week before the gravity stopped dropping, but I ended up letting everything sit a little bit longer until I had the time to transfer to secondary.

When I was ready to get everything into secondary I settled on 5 flavors to experiment with:

• Orange
• Raspberry
• Blackberry
• Galaxy hops
• Rum soaked oak chips

I'd done a blood orange cider before, but I hoped that this time the result would be better. I used only the juice from the orange previously which didn't really come through in the the end, and a very dry champagne yeast that resulted in a thin body. This time around I relied more on the zest from my orange than the juice to contribute flavor.

The blackberries and raspberries I juiced slowly by hand with cheesecloth. I used 24oz of each berry, which gave me a significant amount of juice and resulted in a great color. This also added some sugars and acids to the mix, which I hoped would give a nice tart feeling.

For the Galaxy hopped cider I used 6g of hop pellets in a spice bag, left in the cider for 17 hours or so before completing the dry-hop. I've had issues with a vegetable taste when I tried to get some hops in cider before, so I opted for the short amount of time in the fermenter to combat the issue.

For the cider with rum soaked oak chips I used some Captain we've had for a while. In the past I have mixed this with some mulled pressed cider and it tasted pretty good, so I figured it would be a decent option. I used a full ounce of the medium toasted oak chips, which were also given to me by someone at work. In total I used 80 ml of rum and 1 oz oak chips.

The oak chips absorbed quite a bit of the rum and swelled up as I left them to sit for a few days. The smell was so smoky when I opened the jar that I decided not in include the extra rum when I added the chips to the cider. The leftover rum was significantly darker than the original, and both smells and tastes strongly of oak and smoke. I can imagine flavoring other concoctions with this and it's fun to force onto friends, so I kept it.

In February I got the car back, and finally I could start driving and work on breaking in the motor. As usual the weather wouldn't cooperate because I needed to do something car related, so it rained heavily the entire time when I went to the shop to pick it up. As I arrived they were smoothing out a couple of spots in the base tune, and shortly afterward I was on my way home.

It didn't get better

It was a rough road to get to this point, full of ups and downs (mostly downs) through the winter until I was able to drive the car back under it's own power. Before I could really stretch my legs I'd have to get some miles on the motor and get tuned.

On the way back from buying the car in Florida I had noticed only a few things I wanted to fix which didn't seem like a big deal. The usual interior rattles and odd cracked trim pieces, mirror switches, etc needed to be fixed, but it didn't really seem like a big deal. Going from that perspective to having to do a rebuild and fix loads of other issues was hard enough, but there was still a lot of work to be done.

Not long after again parking in my reserved spot, my downstairs neighbor hit me for the second time. This combined with finding holes in my gas tank while trying to remove the subwoofer from the rear was not very encouraging.

The body shop

What a mess.

In retrospect I should have just taken the battery or ECU with me or something so it was impossible to start the car. Instead I wrote a large note which sat in the window saying not to start the car and I talked with the rep who I would be working with until I was sure he understood. I let him know that if someone screwed around, I would know. If they started the car and turned it off fast they would probably flood it, and I would know. If they did anything stupid, I would know. Basically if anything happened they should be prepared to pay for a tow and repairs. In short: Don't start the car.

Of course along with the call from the body shop saying the door was fixed, I also got the great news that they had started the car and turned it off without letting it warm up, and that it now wouldn't start. There went any chance of me getting any work done there again. When I went to pick up the car I couldn't get it started easily, probably due to both how flooded it was and how dead my tiny battery was from them sitting cranking it for a while.

I wish I would have taken a picture of the body shop guy's face when I told him they could expect to pick up the bill for whatever it would take to get me going again. Luckily for me the guys from Elite drove out to the body shop and got it up and running again for me. It also kind of sounded like they gave the body shop owner a piece of their mind, which was nice for me. I was still putting miles on the engine, so it could have been a lot worse, but it's just another thing that should never have even happened in the first place.

Tuning

I did eventually make it through the break-in process in time to get tuned and dynoed, but again hit some trouble before I was able to put down my final numbers. An electrical issue was causing my fuel pump to get low voltage, so some wiring work had to be done to fix the issue. Everything was looking good so we got my boost controller all hooked up, only to find there was some issue there too, so another time.

I made 333 whp/277 ft-lb at ~12psi, which was just my wastegate spring pressure. I'm a bit disappointed in the numbers since I'm all set up to produce a bit more power, but I can wait it out as long as I need to. I think the numbers are great for the mods and boost, but I did think I was going to go a little farther before being thwarted by more previous ownership gremlins.

Until then I will have the time to get used to the power, which is more than I've had before and in a much lighter car.

The whole reason I went ahead and had the shop pull the engine out of the car to get rebuilt was due to the low compression numbers. I was incredibly interested to know what the true reason behind 60 psi on all faces was. Lucky for me I had the opportunity to see my engine opened up at the engine builder's shop for an initial inspection.

I could see that the gasket under the oil pan was on the ragged edge of being effective. There was a lot of oil seeping near the edge of the gasket, and a lot of clumps of extra material sitting inside the engine itself ready to get caught in the pickup tube screen.

Luckily there didn't seem to be any oil burned on to the bottom of the block. This was nice because it meant that there had likely never been a bad overheating incident, so I wouldn't have to worry about warped housings incurring an extra expense.

The oil pump also looked in great shape. It was entirely possible that the oil pump was replaced in a previous rebuild, which was fine with me. Receipts indicated that the last rebuild the engine had wasn't the only rebuild it had ever had, so a lot of what could be inside was a mystery.

Now that was what I wanted to see! The rotating dorito! The wobbly triangles that were supposed to make the car move! It was really cool to see the engine disassembled piece by piece in person, and it gave me a better understanding of how exactly everything works.

On a brief initial inspection it looked like the side seals didn't have effective springs behind them, which would explain why I had low compression on all faces.

None of the surfaces had any visible scratches or gouges in them, which was good news as far as being able to reuse original parts.

The eccentric shaft (below) was also in great shape, perfectly straight.
It was a great experience to see this initial inspection of everything, I kind of wish I could get my hands on a totally destroyed engine just to take it apart and put it together again.

After I went home and let a few days pass I got a little more information back:

• 5 apex seals either stuck or not able to move freely, possibly because the 3mm apex seal groove was not machined wide enough.
• 1 broken apex seal
• 1 broken corner seal
• most of the side seals not making good contact with the housing, due to bad springs

The apex seal clearance and side seal springs were both issues that would have existed before I bought the car, and probably before the previous owner had the car. Only because the previous owner didn't end up driving the car very much did he not have to go through this rebuild.

I look forward to getting my engine back completely rebuilt and ready to go.

Because I obviously need another hobby and something to race, I decided last year to start building a 250mm sized quadcopter. Initially I wanted to 3D print a frame, but for the amount of time spent and what I was looking to do ended up buying a ZMR250, a nice cheap carbon fiber frame. The complete parts list I settled on for the initial build was:

• ZMR 250 250mm carbon fiber frame
• Team Legit Nucleus PDB w/ voltage regulator
• 4x SunnySky x2204s motors
• 4x KISS ESCs
• CC3D flight controller
• Turnigy 9x Tx and default huge RX module

The ESCs I mounted on the arms instead of setting up spacers and mounting them inboard. I was able to keep all the wires short and solder them in place without putting a lot of stress on the joints. I included some small spacers on the bottom plate to accommodate wires and any other regulators or chips I wanted to store inboard.

The PDB I used was very nice, providing a good 5V source for the flight controller without the need to use an extra voltage regulator. It was nice not having to make my own wiring harness as well. I coated all the open solder connections with liquid electrical tape just in case something came loose while I was flying. Carbon fiber is conductive, so I wanted to avoid starting a fire if possible when I crashed.

All put together the quadcopter weighed just over 500 grams, not too bad really. I would of course need some Velcro to hold the camera and battery in place, but if I could get a modest 4:1 thrust to weight ratio with the Gemfan propellers I knew it would be a lot of fun.

I was unable to get the RX-7 started on my own, so I called a shop for some help and got them to send out a flatbed tow truck to get the car out to them. Since the towing service was the one used by the shop I knew the driver had picked up cars with low ground clearance before. It was nice to know my car wasn't going to be damaged before even getting delivered.

Once I was at the shop I got a chance to talk to the owner and tell him everything I knew about the car, and everything I had tried to get it to start. If it really was just flooded then I would be able to pick it up in running condition pretty soon.

The first piece of bad news I got was that the fuel pump was dead. fuel pressure would build when you turned the car on, but the pump wasn't working well enough for it to provide fuel when cranking, and the pressure would drop. This was unfortunate news, but not the end of the world; testing with a different pump would provide some answers.

When the shop tested with a new pump fuel pressure was strong when trying to run the engine over, but the car still wouldn't start. The next call I got was after they had done a compression test, and the news wasn't good. Compression was down on all faces, below 60 psi, and would likely need a rebuild to get back on the road.

I had some choices to make.
I searched long and hard to find a clean RX-7 without any problems, to avoid a situation exactly like this. I was upset knowing that none of the options I had were very good.

If I tried to sell the car I would take a big hit and lose a lot of money because the car wasn't running. If I chose to do a rebuild I would be spending even more, but then I would have a running car on my hands. Selling the rebuilt car would result in similar loss.

There would be other benefits to doing a build on the car. I would be able to fix any small issues immediately, and I would know exactly what was on the car and what it was capable of. After a night of thought I grudgingly made the call to pull the engine out of the car and go ahead with everything necessary to get the car back on the road again.

The only issue I knowingly bought the car with was that the gauges were't working correctly, even after the previous owner sent them to be rebuilt and tested. That meant I didn't have a speedometer or tachometer when driving, but I was hopeful that it was just a grounding issue that I would be able to fix quickly. Once the shop had really looked everything over and pulled the engine out of the car it became apparent that there were some other issues.

Aside from the fuel pump itself being dead, there were some other problems in the fuel delivery system. The fuel filter was too small, acting as a potential point of restriction. The AN fittings used to split the fuel lines after the fuel pressure regulator weren't designed for fuel, but instead for NOS. The primary injectors were of an unknown brand, not nice like the Bosch secondary injectors.

Before I bought the car the transmission was replaced with a presumably lower mileage JDM transmission. On the drive home it felt great, so I didn't think anything was wrong. When The engine came out it appeared the clutch was not assembled correctly. There were bolts partially backed out from the pressure plate, and it wasn't evenly attached. It seemed possible parts were mismatched and I would need to replace either the pressure plate or the clutch disk.

On the engine all of the emissions were blocked off, along with some other things such as the air separator tank. Most of what was blocked off was done with nice pre-cut plates and a gasket, screwed on to the original location, but there were some other blocked off spots that were not as nice. Anything blocked off that used a smaller hose was just terminated with a bolt and a hose clamp, so I would want to make that nicer as well.

When the wiring harness came off the car there were some obvious problems near the area where the harness exited the engine bay of the car. Oil and dirt, along with the adhesive from the factory insulation had created a slimy mess covering the harness wires, and a few of the wires were broken. Hopefully fixing the problems with the harness would fix the gauges once the car was back together.

I would let the shop see to these things, so I could get the car back in running condition. Now that the car was apart with the engine out it was time to send it out for a rebuild.

I performed a series of hard cider exercises in early 2014 which turned out... just ok. Some of these ciders turned out to be decent, but for the most part the various small batches I made didn't taste good due to bad brewing practices / new brewer mistakes. Most of the problem was too high a brewing temperature, so the examples that ended best were wild or sour yeast blends and cultures that would have had some funky flavors anyway.

This year I wanted to do a better job, and I wanted to start from scratch.

I started by picking about 50 lbs of good apples from the random trees out at the Evenhouse farm. Most of them were relatively sweet, but some of the types of apples were extremely tart and high in acid content, which I knew could be delicious as cider. Once I got the apples home I rinsed and quartered them and threw away the rotten and wormy ones. Then I tossed the apples into the blender and ran it until I had some juicy apple pulp.

From there the nice juicy apple pulp got wrapped in a few layers of cheesecloth, and put between two cutting boards. I used c-clamps and a couple of 2"x4"s to clamp down around the apples, and by tightening all the c-clamps slowly pressed the juice out of all 50 lbs of apples. The entire process was incredibly time consuming, so next time I do this I'll be using the hydraulic press at the farm instead of c-clamps and 2"x4"s.

The entire process yielded around five gallons of cider, which I split into six 1 gallon jugs for fermenting. I used three different types of yeast across the fermentors: EC1118 champaigne yeast, Red Star Montrachet dry wine yeast, and a Lambic blend smack pack I had been keeping in the refrigerator for far too long. I pitched the dry yeast packets directly into the jugs, and the Lambic blend was its own starter so it was ready to go.

Once the yeast appeared to be active in each of the fermentors I wrapped each glass jug in a towel and set it in a container with water in the bottom. By using the evaporative cooling effect I was able to keep the temperatures of the cider around 65 deg F for the entire visibly active portion of the fermentation.

I didn't want to just let all six batches of cider ferment out and end up nearly the same, so I decided to throw some fruit into the mix after all the ciders were through with primary fermentation. Unfortunately my market was almost entirely out of raspberries, so I picked up the last 6oz package of raspberries remaining, and another 24oz of blackberries so I could try and get some of that nice berry flavor into some of the cider. I opted for this raspberry/blackberry mixture in one of the Montrachet yeast fermentors, and mangoes into one of the champagne yeast carboys.

Not wanting to deal with a ton of fruit solids in the cider, I again wrapped 30oz of berries in several layers of cheesecloth and then squeezed as much juice out of them as I could by hand. The berry juice yield was about 1 pint, filling a pint canning jar nearly to the top with thick opaque juice. I dumped the juice into one of my Montrachet carboys and set it aside to re-ferment at the same target temperature I had used for primary fermentation.

The mangoes underwent their own juicing process, but due to nature of mangoes it took a little more time to get the juice out. I ended up using my masticating-auger style juicer to get about a pint of thick creamy mango juice, which I then mixed with the cider from a champagne yeast batch. Letting the mango cider sit allowed some of the fibrous mango pulp to separate out from the rest of the liquid over night, and I was able to filter this out using more cheesecloth. While I did rinse the berries in vodka, and wash the outsides of the mangoes with soapy water, the fruit and cheesecloth were probably sources of contamination for these two fruited ciders. Only time will tell if something strange took hold.

After letting everything ferment until the gravity wasn't dropping any more, it was time to bottle the ciders which were ready. I had intended to let the Lambic blend sit in the carboys for a while longer until it developed a little bit of character, but when I thiefed some it was delicious, so into bottles it went. The uncarbonated berry tasted pretty good too, but the mango was a bit strange. Maybe the mangoes weren't ripe enough, or perhaps they just aren't a great fruit for cider, but there just wasn't the amount of mango sweetness and texture I was hoping for.

Once carbonated I will have produced some blackberry/raspberry cider, mango cider, Lambic cider, and plain old hard cider, all at around 6.5-7% ABV. I'll have a single carboy remaining of the cider already fermented with the champagne yeast, so I'll have to do something interesting with that.

The RX-7 in California didn't work out when the car wasn't running when I arrived. I was disappointed, but felt like I had dodged a bullet. After all if the car wasn't complete when I arrived, what might have been hidden for me to find if the car was running with apparently nothing wrong? In my frustration after returning I posted a want-to-buy ad and waited for a response.

Pretty quickly I started getting responses to my ad, one of which was a great looking red Base model in Florida. After calling to talk with the owner the complete description and ppictures all looked pretty good, and the car matched all my criteria:

1993 Red Base model with no sunroof, with 17000 miles on a motor rebuilt with 3mm apex seals, and a GT35R single turbo. Most of the reliability modifications had been done, and the car was sitting on a good tune. After talking with the owner and getting some pictures everything looked good to go, so I made plans to go down to Florida for a couple days and bought plane tickets.

In person the car was in great shape, just about as good as the owner described in our texts and forum messages. The paint was in excellent shape and I could tell that it would be beautiful with a good detail in the Spring. The interior of the car was also in excellent condition. Everything appeared to be in order under the hood as well, and I was of course drawn in by the power I felt during the ride-along I took when I met the car for the first time.

My Wife and I drove the car back to Chicago over a weekend in the beginning of November, stopping over in Tennessee for the night to rest and see my Dad. Since I had no plates on the car and was travelling with only the title and bill of sale I took it easy on the drive back to keep from attracting too much attention. The only police encounter I had was the first time I stopped for gas, and the officer filling up at the same station really just wanted to compliment me on how clean the car was.

The Monday night after I got back to Chicago, I drove out to the suburbs to show off my new toy. I was excited to finally have the car home and in such a good state, but I was disappointingly unable to have too much fun due to the low temperatures and no grip.

The next morning I got hit with a downside to having a small PC680 battery: they don't hold a charge well in cold weather. The night before had been below freezing with a good frost setting in overnight, and slow cranking made the low charge obvious. After sitting for a few minutes to get a jump the car started up without a problem. After I got the car back into town I ordered a battery tender, which I immediately needed when the car cranked slowly again after sitting in freezing weather for a couple of days. Once charged I tested it out by starting the car, which I let idle for a couple minutes before shutting it off and going inside.

Unfortunately this was the last time I could get the car to start at all on my own.

Once I had supplies to do an oil change I went out to drive the car to the store so I could buy a drain pan and let the oil heat up. When I went out to start the car though it cranked and cranked but just would not start. The engine didn't stumble, pop, backfire, explode, burn to the ground, or make any sounds at all which I would associate with gasoline being ignited by a spark. After some reading I decided I had probably just flooded the engine, so set about doing deflood procedures.

When I couldn't get the car started using normal methods I decided to pull the spark plugs and replace them with new ones all around. I checked for spark on each plug to make sure I didn't have a bad connection, and I smelled fuel when I tried to turn over, but still couldn't start the car so I kept going. I pulled the new plugs back out and cleaned them up, and cranked the car with over to blow any gas out of the plug holes. I was successful and few rags dirty, which reinforcing my belief that this was a flooding issue.

I put everything back together and waited for my battery to recharge, and tried to start again, but still it cranked and cranked but would not start. It was time to go to someone else, someone who already had experience with these cars.

It's possible fate has smiled upon me, I may have finally found an RX-7. A 1993 R1 showed up on Craigslist, but there are a couple things that make getting it interesting/difficult: it's in Southern California, and it's getting a rebuild that isn't 100% complete. The ad lists the following modifications:

• Apexi Power FC and Commander
• Pioneer Stereo Headunit
• Rebuilt/Streetported factory engine
• Racing beat intake
• 850cc Primary and 1200cc Secondary Injectors
• Silicone hose kit
• Greddy Trust SMIC Intercooler
• Grounding Kit
• Koyo Aluminum Radiator
• Peter Farrel Exhaust
• Bonez 3" High Flow Catalytic converter
• B&M short shifter
• Racing Beat Intake Duct
• BF Goodrich kdw2 Sport Tires
• Performance hawk pads.
• Stainless steel brake lines
• Greddy Turbo Timer

After considering my options and talking everything over with my awesome wife, I decided to look into what it would take to get the car home back to Chicago. Shipping the car would be expensive enough to affect my budget, so I knew that wouldn't be an option. That meant driving would be my best bet.

Luckily for me I knew I would be flying out to a conference in Santa Clara on September 21st, which would both put me close enough to go down and look at the car, and help offset the cost of getting it home a little bit.

After asking the owner many many questions I ended up with some great news. The rebuild would be finished by the end of my work trip on the 24th, and it would come with a transferable three month warranty to get me through the break-in period.

I decided to go for it.

Cut to today, September 24th. Not everything is perfect, but I'm here in Santa Clarita, prepared to pick up the car tomorrow morning. There have been some hurdles communicating with the current owner, but it looks like everything should work out, and I've got a plan.

I'm going to be driving the car back to Chicago from Santa Clarita, camping along the way. There isn't much else to tell until I'm in the car tomorrow morning, so I guess I'll see how it goes.

The plan was always to sell the E30 early this year and buy an FD RX-7. I had my fun with the BMW, sold it for nearly what I got it for, and the hunt was officially on for an FD. I had been actively searching since early in the year, but now over six months later I still haven't found an acceptable RX-7.

What gives?

I decided to dig into the available information online and see if I could find an answer. 1993-1995 were the only years the FD body RX-7 was produced for the US Domestic Market (USDM). According to Mazda Distribution the 1993 models were the most common at 9,976 produced, and at the end of the 1995 model year 13,879 USDM RX-7s had been produced.

That's not a huge number to begin with, but I have also limited myself in a few other ways due to my height and personal preferences on which I will not compromise:

• Color: red, black, yellow, or maybe white
• No Sunroof, I'm tall and need room for a helmet
• Must be a manual transmission
• Body and interior must be in decent condition, no rust.
• Must be running and not about to explode
• Must have a clean title

1976 of these had automatic transmissions
7170 of the remaining had a sun/moon roof
851 of the remaining were Montego Blue or Silver Stone in color

Best case this means that 3882 USDM models I would want were produced. So how many of the original USDM models are still on the street today? In 2005 (10 years) an official source showed 9796 FD RX-7s registered in the US. If all the 4083 unregistered and probably deceased FDs were uniformly distributed across all the available trim levels, maybe 2740 manual RX-7s of an acceptable color and no sunroof remained in 2003.

If after ten years two thirds of the RX-7s in the US remain, I can make an optimistic and completely uninformed guess that in the next ten years to the present we lost another third of the remaining cars. This guess brings the number down to around 1900 total in the US that partially match my criteria.

Here is where the real guesswork starts, but I will continue to be optimistic in my estimates to keep the number of theoretically remaining cars as high as possible. There are three more criteria one of these cars will have to meet to be acceptable to me: clean title, body and interior must be in decent shape with no rust, and mechanical status must be good.

For me to consider the body of the car to be in good shape it must have zero rust, and no extensive bodywork. This means the car must pass the magnet test unless full documentation shows no frame damage occurred, and no body kits can be installed which require cutting, riveting, or otherwise making a bunch of holes in the original metal body panels. I don't think it's unreasonable to eliminate half of the remaining cars which lived in the Salt Belt (4150/2 = 2075), bringing the number down to 1278. I won't remove too many from the pool due to bodywork in the hope that the same people who use huge kits are the ones that let the rust take hold, so down to 1200 remaining.

That just leaves the cars with a good mechanical status, and the ones that are on sale. In my searches so far I've found the cars on sale to be pretty evenly split between ones I would and would not buy due to their mechanical status. The good ones tend to be low-mileage and stock-ish, higher-mileage with a rebuilt engine, or modified well but still under 400 horsepower to the wheels. The ones I wouldn't get right now have been high-mileage with issues running, not running, or have some crazy modifications (think 700 horsepower) turning the engine into a time bomb. Personally, I think this cuts the number I would consider in half, to roughly 600 cars.

Unfortunately for me the trim levels that match my criteria are also considered the most desirable: Base, R1, and R2. It's possible that most of the owners of these models want to hold on to them, so maybe it isn't so surprising I'm having a hard time finding one to buy. If I were to assume that 1% of the 600 possible remaining cars of these trim levels were for sale, there would only be six available in the country which I could buy.

Number of USDM models produced: http://alecto.bittwiddlers.com/vehicles/rx7-numbers.shtml
Number available as of 2005 http://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/registered-fd-s-state-536441/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mazda-rx7-3rd-generation01.jpg by Taisyo

Welcome the Fanatec Clubsport Shifter and Handbrake to the family. My wife Alex pre-ordered them as a birthday gift for me and I got a nice surprise on Feb 10th when they arrived in the mail, earlier than I had expected. I immediately got to work mounting them to the rig.
My decision to go with the Fanatec Clubsport Shifter SQ was swayed by the Fanatec Clubsport Shifter SQ Review by Inside Sim Racing, plus some other videos of the shifter in action. It appeared to be a good quality for the price as well as being packed with the functionality I wanted, and I have not been disappointed.

I used my own car as a reference for the position of the shift knob and handbrake. I tried to replicate the feeling of being able to drop your hand down from the wheel and have it naturally fall on the shift knob.
The handbrake I attached rally-style, just to the outside of the shift lever. I'm sure I will continue to adjust the position of each control until it feels good for me, but for now I'm satisfied.

The whole new assembly only required a couple feet of material: 24", 6.5", and ~3". I did decide to use a couple of joining plates in addition to the L brackets to increase rigidity. I'm sure I'll be putting everything through its paces.

When mounting the handbrake I just made do with the remaining joining plates I had lying around. I wish I could anchor in to more places on the body of the handbrake, but I don't see any flex issues so I hope it will be ok. The shifter on the other hand I anchored in a number of places, for a total of 4 mounting points: three on the sides (front and back), and one on the bottom. It is without a doubt firmly attached to the new side rail.

I was still able to tuck all the wires neatly away into the channels of the profile, and with the 4-port usb hub in use I still only have to deal with 2 cables coming from the end. These are all the pieces I had envisioned having when I first began building the racing rig, so now I'll have to fine tune and adjust everything while thinking of what to do next.

Only a few days after initial completion I was able to make some more progress. The biggest addition was my use of some extra brackets to add a spot for a keyboard on a swinging arm. I also did away with the cardboard by putting some felt pads on the base, which makes the entire rig easier to slide around.

It's nice having the keyboard on a swinging arm so it doesn't get in the way when when I'm settling in. If I keep this mounting solution I will likely use some Sugru (self curing rubber) on the bottom lip of the brackets to help with positioning and grip to make the keyboard truly stable in this position.

Recently I saw a Craigslist ad from a guy selling some 15 Series 80/20 aluminum extrusion for a great price. This coincided with me receiving both Clubsport V2 Pedals and a T300RS as gifts, so I knew it was time to build an awesome racing rig.

I could only use my previous PVC+DFGT racing rig by rearranging the furniture in the living room. This was both time consuming for me and annoying for everyone else, so it will be nice to have an easy way to store and set up this new construction.

Not having easy access to the appropriate power tools to cut the extrusion, I opted to do things the hard way. I created a jig out of some roughly cut ends, a joining plate, and the four brackets I had available. It worked well enough, but was very time consuming. Over the period of a few days I cut the aluminum by hand while I waited for my brackets to arrive.

I was able to go to a nearby pick-n-pull yard and take the driver's seat from a 2004 Lancer. The seat works well enough but I would like to eventually replace it with something better, as I'm a little tall for the seat. Once I had all the pieces I was ready to begin construction.

I wanted to make everything as adjustable as possible, so I settled on a wheel mounting design which would allow me to change the height, angle, and distance from the driver. It is a little time consuming to adjust, But I don't need to adjust very often, and I can achieve the exact wheel placement I want.

For the vertical pieces of the wheel mounting assembly I used two pieces of extrusion anchored to each other side by side using two-hole joining plates. I think it would have been better to use one piece of 1.5"x3", but since I was able to pick up a number of joining plates along with the 15 Series this was the cheapest option for me.

I opted to mount the wheel to just two parallel rails using 16mm M6 screws through a couple of two-hole brackets. I didn't feel that mounting to a plate or using more extrusion would give me any more stability, and everything is rock solid so I think this will be fine. When I was working on my design I was concerned I would hit my knees on the wheel mounting assembly. I had this issue with my PVC wheel mount, and had read of others having the same concern, but I shouldn't have been worried. The wheel sits far enough in front of the supports where I have no issues.

In line with my goal to make everything as adjustable as possible, the angle of the pedals can also be changed. The height of the pedals can be changed slightly, but since I can change the height of the wheel and I wanted a seat with height adjustment I didn't make this a priority.

The best thing about having everything mounted to a sturdy frame is I can hit the brakes as hard as I want with no noticeable flex anywhere. I'm confident enough in my construction that I have no fear of sending the pedals or pieces of aluminum into the piece of glass directly behind them.

I haven't had a car of my own since early 2013, so it's going to be really nice to have something fun to drive again.
I found this 1987 BMW 325is over in South Bend, Indiana. It has a few cosmetic things wrong with it that I will have to fix, but seems to be in great mechanical condition. I drove it back to Chicago without any incident, so I'm hoping to get through the winter months and take some long trips without any trouble. The only thing that worries me is this car has done 220,000 miles.

I've liked the way e30 BMWs look for a long time, so it's exciting to finally have one of my own. My only real goal for this car is to get used to driving a rear wheel drive car with enough power to be fun. I have plans to upgrade to something faster in the future, but the market is good for these BMWs, so it's a good chance to own something fun and learn before moving on.

There is some rust.
The front quarter panels and door sills have started to go, and will eventually need some attention in order to keep the car on the road, but that is really the worst of the rust. There are several other surface rust areas the previous owner had sanded down for repainting, but they will need to be re-sanded before any painting can be done. If I have the car long enough I will do this myself, it's a good preventative measure and would make the car look cleaner.

The previous owner replaced the stock badges with these carbon fiber look black and white badges. Both front, back, and the steering wheel badge have been replaced. I don't really know how I feel about these badges, so if someone offered to trade I would probably take them up on it.

I'm excited to have a fun new-to-me car. I'll let it see me through the winter while performing maintenance tasks and fixing anything else that bothers me, and see how I feel come spring. Whatever happens, it will involve more POWERRR!

My first quadcopter started as the base Syma X1. I felt it was pretty much perfect for learning how to fly, due to its cost and durability. The idea of fpv seemed too cool to not try, so I've slowly modded the X1 to its current state:

• CL-0720-12 motors
• 808 #16 V2 (120) keychain camera
• Boscam Audio Video Transmitter Module TX5823
• Homemade antenna

I'm flying with a Turnigy 9x controller, using an RC805 Rx, and an EasyCAP usb video capture dongle to view the video on a laptop. I've used a step-up voltage regulator to allow me to power the RC805 from usb, so everything on my base station just runs off of a laptop battery. I'm using tvtime or dscaler to view the video, but still have ~100ms lag or so.
Overall I'm really happy with the setup I've constructed. I'm going to keep practicing with this for a little while, but can't wait to move on to something slightly larger.

For this specific build I wasn't going for the absolute cheapest thing I could make while still using the Syma X1 as a base, but I've made up a couple of options which bring the price down a bit for something similar to what I'm flying:

V1:

• $29 Syma X1 (FC, frame, motors, props, battery, controller) or similar (v939?): Amazon
• $20 camera - cheap cctv camera: DXsoul
• $11 transmitter - TX5823, maybe TX5813: Banggood
• $3 battery for Tx (100mAh or 150mAh?): 100mAh Banggood, 150mAh Banggood

TOTAL: $63 Nothing else needed to fly, base station still required

V2:

• $9 FC: Banggood
• $3 props: Banggood
• $8 ebay motors (Stock: ~$7 from ebay) CL-0720-14: ?
• $4 Copter battery - 300mAh/350mAh: Banggood
• $20 camera - cheap cctv camera: DXsoul
• $11 transmitter - TX5823, maybe TX5813: Banggood
• $3 battery for Tx (100mAh or 150mAh?): 100mAh Banggood, 150mAh Banggood

TOTAL: $58 Controller and frame needed to fly, base station still required.
The benefit here is possibly lighter weight. +~$10 gets you better motors.
I would recommend making a light frame from wood, or having someone print one for you.

Base Station:

• $23/$20 RC805 Rx / 305 Banggood 805, Banggood 305
• $6 Step-up voltage regulator to power Rx from usb: Amazon
• $8-$15 USB video capture device: Amazon

TOTAL: $34-$44

TOTAL FOR FULL SYSTEM: $92-$107 I haven't bought these specific parts and put them together, this was more of an exercise in how low I could push the cost with easy to find components.

My first dye I did on a Champion Rhyno I found some time ago while playing my home course. It was a pretty worn disc, so I got a little bleeding around some of the edges and the tip of the horn, but for a first try I was happy with the result.

For my second dye I wanted to do something really cool. I remembered seeing a post on reddit with a pattern I liked, so I set about creating the stencil in the same manner I had done the Rhyno.

First I decided how the stencil to be on the disc. I knew roughly how large the outer circle would have to be from my reference image, so I took a measurement on the disc and drew the initial circle. The white vinyl is just thin enough where in dim light, my laptop screen will barely shine though, but it makes it possible to mark some specific reference points on the stencil. Once I marked some of the areas of finer detail, I sketched in the rest of the stencil outline by hand and shaded in the "black" areas where I wanted to dye.

Next it was time to remove the negative "black" areas of the stencil, in preparation for transferring the remaining vinyl on to the disc. Since I don't have a vinyl cutter I cut my stencils by hand using an X-Acto knife, and if too little pressure is used while cutting the vinyl will not be cut all the way through. This made peeling the negative areas a painful process, cleaning up all the little areas I had missed cutting the first time. Rough edges are where the dye tends to bleed under stencil, so I took my time getting everything peeled away.

Once the stencil was complete it was time to transfer it on to the top of the disc, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of this step. To transfer the stencil strips of painters tape were placed on to the stencil until the entire thing was covered in a sheet of blue tape. It was then possible to remove the cardboard backing from the vinyl, while leaving the vinyl stuck in place on the sheet of tape, ready to be placed on the disc.

I aligned the center of the stencil with the center of the disc and carefully applied it. Once all the bubbles had been smoothed out, it was possible to remove the painters tape from the disc, while leaving the vinyl stencil stuck to the disc in the correct place. Once all bubbles and lifted edges of the stencil had been smoothed out, it was time to dye the disc.

I used some black iDye Poly fabric dye, which works on synthetic fibers and... disc plastic! I left the sheet of vinyl for the stencil large so the dye would not spill over the edge. A pie plate is the perfect size for this.

Overall a success! I got some slight bleeding in a couple areas, but nothing major, and it looks great on the ground